Using Art as Research in Learning and Teaching

Description

Using Art as Research in Learning and Teaching explores various multidisciplinary visual and performing art forms, including creative writing, as ways to provide a rich contribution and understanding to research, learning and teaching. Key figures in the field share their art-based research, arts practice and philosophy, bringing the arts to life within their taught and learnt contexts across a variety of art forms and levels of post-compulsory education. In what is an invaluable collection, this book is directly beneficial to arts researchers and educators, addressing the key challenges and possibilities in a rapidly changing higher education environment.



Internationally renowned proponent of arts-based research Professor Shaun McNiff provides the Foreword of this ground-breaking book.

Foreword

Shaun McNiff

Preface 

Ross W. Prior

Chapter 1: Introduction: Artist–Educator–Researcher 

Ross W. Prior

Part 1: Aesthetic Education and Ways of Knowing in Art 

Chapter 2: Art as a Procedure of Truth 

Malcolm Ross

Chapter 3: ‘Not Sure’: The Didactics of Elusive Knowledge 

Peter Sinapius

Chapter 4: Art as the Topic, Process and Outcome of Research within Higher Education

Ross W. Prior

Chapter 5: A Different Way of Knowing: Assessment and Feedback in Art-Based Research

Mitchell Kossak

Part 2: Developing Our Practice in Postgraduate Education 

Chapter 6: Doing Art-Based Research: An Advising Scenario 

Shaun McNiff

Chapter 7: Research–Practice–Pedagogy: Establishing New Topologies of Doctoral Research in the Arts

Jacqueline Taylor

Chapter 8: The ‘Epistemic Object’ in the Creative Process of Doctoral Inquiry 

Carole Gray, Julian Malins and Maxine Bristow

Using Art as Research in Learning and Teaching

Chapter 9: Finding My Visual Research Voice: Art as the Tool for Research 

Megan Lawton

Part 3: Involving Students and Others in Art as Research

Chapter 10: Making and Material Affect: From Learning and Teaching to Sharing and Listening

Mah Rana and Fiona Hackney

Chapter 11: Using Art to Cultivate ‘Medical Humanities Care’ in Chinese Medical Education

Daniel Vuillermin

Chapter 12: Entanglement in Shakespeare’s Text: Using Interpretive Mnemonics with Acting Students with Dyslexia

Petronilla Whitfield

Chapter 13: Dancing as a Wolf: Art-Based Understanding of Autistic Spectrum Condition

Kevin Burrows

Part 4: Current and Future Issues in Arts Learning and Teaching 

Chapter 14: Making Art and Teaching Art: Harnessing the Tension 

Libby Byrne and Patricia Fenner

Chapter 15: Future Approaches in Using Artistic Research from Human Experience

Petar Jandric ́ and Sarah Hayes

Notes on Contributors

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Arts visuels
• Writting
• Occupational Therapy
• Allied Health Services
• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Performing Arts
• EDUCATION
• Expressive therapy
• General officer
• Writing
• General
• Research
• ART

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 15 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783209750
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in the UK in 2018 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2018 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2018 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
Copy-editor: MPS Technologies
Cover designer: Aleksandra Szumlas
Cover image: The Iron Bridge, Ironbridge, Shropshire, England. Painting by Shaun McNiff, 2016
Production manager: Amy Rollason
Typesetting: Contentra Technologies
Print ISBN: 978-1-78320-892-0
ePDF ISBN: 978-1-78320-976-7
ePUB ISBN: 978-1-78320-975-0
Printed and bound by Hobbs, UK
This is a peer-reviewed publication.
This book is dedicated to Dan.
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
– John Steinbeck
A picture is not thought out and settled beforehand. While it is being done it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it is finished, it still goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it. A picture lives a life like a living creature, undergoing the changes imposed on us by our life from day to day. This is natural enough, as the picture lives only through the man who is looking at it.
– Pablo Picasso
Contents
Foreword
Shaun McNiff
Preface
Ross W. Prior
Chapter 1: Introduction: Artist–Educator–Researcher
Ross W. Prior
Part 1: Aesthetic Education and Ways of Knowing in Art
Chapter 2: Art as a Procedure of Truth
Malcolm Ross
Chapter 3: ‘Not Sure’: The Didactics of Elusive Knowledge
Peter Sinapius
Chapter 4: Art as the Topic, Process and Outcome of Research within Higher Education
Ross W. Prior
Chapter 5: A Different Way of Knowing: Assessment and Feedback in Art-Based Research
Mitchell Kossak
Part 2: Developing Our Practice in Postgraduate Education
Chapter 6: Doing Art-Based Research: An Advising Scenario
Shaun McNiff
Chapter 7: Research–Practice–Pedagogy: Establishing New Topologies of Doctoral Research in the Arts
Jacqueline Taylor
Chapter 8: The ‘Epistemic Object’ in the Creative Process of Doctoral Inquiry
Carole Gray, Julian Malins and Maxine Bristow
Chapter 9: Finding My Visual Research Voice: Art as the Tool for Research
Megan Lawton
Part 3: Involving Students and Others in Art as Research
Chapter 10: Making and Material Affect: From Learning and Teaching to Sharing and Listening
Mah Rana and Fiona Hackney
Chapter 11: Using Art to Cultivate ‘Medical Humanities Care’ in Chinese Medical Education
Daniel Vuillermin
Chapter 12: Entanglement in Shakespeare’s Text: Using Interpretive Mnemonics with Acting Students with Dyslexia
Petronilla Whitfield
Chapter 13: Dancing as a Wolf: Art-Based Understanding of Autistic Spectrum Condition
Kevin Burrows
Part 4: Current and Future Issues in Arts Learning and Teaching
Chapter 14: Making Art and Teaching Art: Harnessing the Tension
Libby Byrne and Patricia Fenner
Chapter 15: Future Approaches in Using Artistic Research from Human Experience
Petar Jandrić and Sarah Hayes
Notes on Contributors
Foreword

Shaun McNiff
Why do art-based research and for whom?

In my opening keynote address at the University of Wolverhampton conference on 31 August 2016 I asked – If we advocate for art as a way of knowing that engages realms inaccessible to linear and logical thought, then why is it that we do not use it as a primary mode of inquiry when researching how the arts might enhance human experience?
The general sense from the three days of presentations and discussions was that concerns about legitimacy were the chief deterrents to the use of art as research. Many spoke of how they feel compelled to provide research outcomes that will favourably impress ‘decision makers’ in government and institutional leadership, who almost universally assume that value is determined by what is considered scientific evidence. In response, I asked – Why do we do research and for whom do we do it?
I do research for my community of practice. I have explored methods of engaging others in artistic expression for five decades with a desire to perfect practice, to be as effective as possible in helping people express themselves with various forms of art, and to understand the ways in which these expressions impact personal and group experience. I have also examined the extent to which particular aspects of artistic expression are accessible to people everywhere, and the degree to which these practices have been present throughout history.
The common tendency since the beginning of applied arts research has been to examine art-related questions and issues through the methods, concepts and languages of psychology and social science, resulting in the general use of art as ‘data’ or raw material for a very different academic discipline. Many assume that this is what we are doing when we talk about art-based research. I define art-based research as the use of artistic expression by the researcher, either alone or with others, as a primary mode of inquiry. In the concluding session of the University of Wolverhampton conference, Megan Lawton, a College of Learning and Teaching staff member, may have defined it even better: ‘It took some of us a while to see that it is not just about art as a subject of research, but art as a tool and process of research’ (personal communication, 2 September 2016). I refer to art , like the German Kunst , as including all of the arts and artists from every discipline of creative expression (McNiff 2013: x).
Since artistic outcomes emerge, often unexpectedly, from the process of inquiry and cannot be known at the start, this discipline is arguably the opposite of the scientific method with its planned procedures oriented towards documenting predictable and generalizable processes. Art is about the uniqueness of particular things and events, and is arguably more in sync with how life is experienced. The imperative to justify the use of art according to scientific evidence and objectives is thus incongruous, and it ensures continued marginalization in all levels of education and in research. I have never been concerned with ‘proving’ or ‘measuring’ artistic efficacy. I attempt to be more attentive to creative expressions. The same applies to what we do in helping others express themselves. I try to do the work as well as possible in the various settings of practice and let it speak for itself. At the conference, the presence of faculty members who are pursuing research in visual art, design, and performing arts settings helped to check the tendency within art-based research to become overly involved in the art vs. science polarization that happens within the arts in education and therapy domains. It was important to show that there are places where this dynamic does not exist.
The intricacies of human experience cannot be reduced to categorical and predictable principles and art is the timeless discipline for exploring, shaping and understanding these spontaneous realities. For example, in the visual arts painters talk about the importance of letting things happen with the application of paint, rather than the more controlled method of first drawing a composition and then applying the paint to it. Writers describe how the characters in a novel reveal the ensuing action and outcomes. And artists in every discipline consistently emphasize the importance of getting started, moving things around, playing with possibilities and sticking with the process of expression with a trust that the most significant things will emanate outside the scope of intended results (McNiff 2015). With artistic expression, very little of consequence and depth goes according to plan. Art operates within a different paradigm to science and ideally the two complement one another.
The hope of gaining legitimacy through something other than the main features of the creative process suggests a distrust of the very things we advocate. Rather than continue this impossible effort, why not concentrate on what art can do that science cannot? Can we focus on what art brings to human understanding, rather than persist in trying to prove ourselves through systems that marginalize artistic knowing?
Social scientists should do the same, according to Alasdair MacIntyre (2007). Due to its inability to establish law-like generalizations from the unpredictability of human actions, he believes that the attempts of social science to be like natural science are self-defeating. And to the extent to which the arts attach themselves exclusively to social science, we add to the negative chain reaction. MacIntyre feels that social science research will become more relevant by studying practical wisdom in relation to particular and dynamic life situations. He calls this phronesis , a term derived from Aristotle, who proposed different kinds of knowing; also including epistémé (theoretical knowing), techné (technical knowing) and poiesis (making or creating). This plural reality of intelligence is lost today in the pursuit of legitimacy through science alone.
I have always embraced artistic inquiry as a form of practitioner research. I have a pragmatic bias and resonate closely with an emphasis on phronesis , which supports questions like – How might we explore challenges of professional practice, conflicts, and complex human experiences in ways that further competence and understanding? How can we be more effective in responding to the reliably unexpected and infinitely unique nature of human situations an